Why Nursing?

Oh gosh, what a question. After these last few months, I have seriously asked myself “WHY?” so many times and have honestly forgotten why I went into this career. So let me try to tell you why I chose nursing.

What has helped me keep going during this slump in the career? To be frank, paychecks and student loans. I got bills to pay!! Yes, this may seem cold, but you don’t have to keep reading if you don’t want to. I’m pretty sure everyone has gone through questioning their career.

Why is there a slump and why am I questioning this? Maybe I am just not where I should be in my career; or maybe the where I am has me so drained I have nothing left to give. I have a strong feeling it is the latter reason to be frank. My job is wiping me out emotionally, mentally, and now it has taken a toll physically.

Now, to answer the question. I went into nursing because it was a fluid career. Nursing gave me an opportunity to travel and find a job anywhere I went. That is honestly why I went into nursing. I was not one of those people who went in initially because they really wanted to help people and cared about people. For me, that came later as I started to develop in my clinicals. I care about people, but I am not always the best at communicating how to them.

I graduated five years ago. Wow, that feels like a lifetime ago. If you’re a student nurse or even a new nurse you should keep a journal of their first few years in the real world. I wish I would have kept one during these past two years on a Medical-Surgical floor. Journals are amazing at self-discovery and reflection. All I have is my memories of how new I was a couple of years ago and how familiar it is to me now.

Why nursing? I am seriously unable to answer that still. I don’t know why nursing. I don’t even particularly think I’m all that good at it. I recognize that is something you’d never want to hear your nurse say, but it is the truth. I feel confident in my nursing skills, I just suck at bedside manner. I think inside my head a lot. However, overall, I’m gonna do my best to get you (the patient) better. I just need my patients to HELP me HELP them. That’s a whole other blog post and maybe a huge reason I am just feeling so burnt out on this whole nursing career.